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THE INTERVENTION OF MR. ONUR ÖYMEN IN THE ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION IN WASHINGTON INSTITUTE – 20 APRIL 2007

First of all thank you very much for your kind invitation. I am very pleased to be here again in Washington Institute. This time, I came with a delegation with the aim to talk with the Congress, particularly on the so-called Armenian resolution and the situation in Iraq. I profited from the occasion and met some friends. We met some Congressmen and senators. If you ask my conclusions, I discovered two categories of Americans. Number one: friends of Turkey.  Number two: potential friends of Turkey. So my feeling is that; the more we talk, the more we inform Americans, more we have friends, because they are open to listen. I must confess you that to talk with Americans, according to our own experience, is easier than to talk with the Europeans. In Europe, you have a lot of pre-consist ideas whereas in America, you have the feeling that they are ready to listen to you. In case they agree with your arguments, they can easily give their approval. It’s not always the case in Europe.

In Turkey, we are passing through a difficult period. This year, we will have two elections. On 16th of May, we will have presidential elections and in November, we will have general elections. So this year, we have to be very careful and there are important developments. It is always good to inform our friends, not only about the policy of our government, but also the opposition. Once I remember in the middle of the 90s, we were trying to improve our relations with Israel. And once we told our friends in the American administration that we are making progress with the Israeli government and we are satisfied with the level of our relations. They told us, “It’s good but not good enough. You have to improve your relations with the opposition. Because opposition is the government of tomorrow.” So it was a good lesson and we are also in different countries trying to talk with opposition and exchange views and trying to understand their views. That’s why, I appreciate your willingness to learn our views as well.

When we read testimonies in the Congress of several American officials, groups comities and departments; we often notice the reference to two important bodies in Turkey. One is the government and the other is the armed force. We believe that two important bodies in Turkey are the government and the opposition. Of course, military’s views are important on the several security issues, but military should not be presented as an alternative to the government. The alternative to the government is the opposition. So what type of opposition we have today in Turkey? Atatürk himself has founded my party CHP, Republican People’s Party just two months before the proclamation of our Republic. And it was the party, which established the original major reforms and the foundation of the republic, and all sorts of activities in most difficult periods, between the two wars and right after the war. And it was again our party under the leadership of the president İnönü, who is a friend of Atatürk, he decided to start multi-party system in 1946. We lost the general elections in 1950 and it is for the first time in Turkish republican history, a political party a leader a president of the republic, left gladly the power to the opposition. This was a major service to Turkish democracy.

My party has policies in foreign policy area. We never use foreign policy issues for domestic purposes. It is a tradition we have inherited from the founders of our party. We consider foreign policy issues as national issues so we support the governments when we are in the opposition. When we are working on the issues of national interest and when we are in power most of the time in the past, we noticed that the opposition supports us on similar methods. So, as long as the policies of the government are consistent with national interests of Turkey and with established basic policy line, we have no problem and no difficulty. Sometimes when we notice a deviation from the basic line, of course we criticize to make necessary corrections. There is a particularly important point I would like to mention in this regard. While talking about my party, there is quite often a reference particularly in Europe that my party is a nationalist party. In a sense, it is true because nationalism is one of the six basic principals of our party, one of the six basic arrows showing principals of our party. But the thing is that, the meaning of nationalism in Turkey is totally different from the meaning in Europe or maybe in America. So Turkish nationalism has nothing to do with racism or irredentism or expansionism. Our nationalism means, the defense of national interest. As you do, as you care in the US, we care in Turkey to defend our own national interests; independence, sovereignty. Those are the basic mottos of Atatürk and this is the meaning of nationalism in Turkey. Otherwise we are as international as any party in Europe and in America. We care the interests of other countries as well and we have absolutely no racial or expansionist policies.

In this regard, I would like to remind you that since 1924, since our first republican constitution, nationalism is one of the basic principals of our constitution. 1924, 1961, 1982 there are always a reference among the basic principals of our constitution; it is the second principal, which is equally important, maybe even more important is the secularism. So my party attaches a very high importance to secularism. We believe that secularism is a ‘sine qua non’ condition in a democracy particularly where the majority of the population is Muslim. In our history, we never had war among religions but the domination of the religion in our history, created a lot of problems for society. It’s the reason why we missed the Industrial Revolution and during several defeats of the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century, we had always had the influence of the religion in the negative sense. Therefore, one of the first steps taken by Atatürk and his friends after the war of liberation in 1922 and then the establishment of the republic was the separation of religion from the affairs of the state. And later we made the principal of secularism, basic principal of our constitution. So that, a few basic rules of the constitution like democracy, republican principals, the capital of Turkey, secularism is among the principals that you can even not propose a change. No political party can say that ‘we want to change this principal and instead this, we would like to add another article to make Turkey an Islamic country.’ So among 57 Muslim countries, Turkey is the only who succeeded to develop a secular society, and by definition, in a democracy. There were a few others who tried, for instance, Bangladesh. It started as a secular country, but they could survive as a secular Republic only for five years. They yielded afterwards under the influence of Islamists. There are other countries, like Morocco for instance, who was close to secularism. But now under the influence of extremist religious parties, secular people are losing ground. I met the Moroccan Minister the other day and she said, “my party was the last secular party and today I am the last secular person in my party.” So secularism is losing ground in several other places. That is why, the maintenance of secular principles in Turkey is absolutely important. In our region it is particularly important, because unfortunately in our region some countries want to use religion as a tool in foreign policy. For instance, I was in the first delegation that has visited Iran after the so-called Islamic Revolution, I was accompanying the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We wanted to see Ayatullah Khomeini. They said that this was impossible because he is not in Tehran. We said that we must see him to understand what he thinks. Finally, they could not resist and they took us to Khomeini. While introducing his colleagues to us, Khomeini, we also met his representative in Turkey. He said, “the job of this person would be to spread Iranian Revolution in Turkey.” It is how they operate. Today, while watching Iran, Iran is not an enemy of Turkey we are neighbors but still, we are not only focusing on their nuclear programme, which is by itself an extremely dangerous programme that we have to do everything possible to stop it, but at the same time we are watching their policy of exporting their revolution, their religious ideas to the region. They see religion as a tool for the expression of their political aims. You should see the Middle East from the religious perspective in case. We have the slightest idea that you may also use religion as a tool. We warn our American friends ‘please don’t try, don’t ever think about that.’ Because other countries will be by far more successful than you in using the religion and you will be the loser. So Iranians, for instance, they use Shia sect as a tool. In Iraq, there is 60% of the population of Shia sect. Saddam Hussein was Sunni, Bass leadership was Sunni and they were checking this Shia majority somehow. But at this moment, they are in power and nobody in Iraq can check it. We are talking about the division of Iraq into three parts and everyone of us in Turkey, we are talking about possible Kurdistan in the north, what are we going to do with it etc. It is a serious issue. Southern Iraq will be Shia state. So today, I say 60% of the Iraqi population is Shia. But in southern Iraq you will have a Shia government with probably 95% of the population of Shia sect. It will give Iran very valuable tools to expand its influence to the state, to the Gulf region. And also they will use strong Shia minorities in Kuwait and also in Saudi Arabia. Plus, in Bahrain, 70% of the population is Shia. So we have to be extremely careful in thinking in religious terms in this region. Also, at this moment, the majority of the Syrian population is Sunni but the government is Alevi. It is a sort of Shia sect. Then when you go to Lebanon, then you have Hizbullah organization, which is extremely strong. 45% of the Lebanon, they belong to Hizbullah and they are the strongest. Therefore, in case they push all the way these religious elements, they may establish, a sort of religious belt between Iran and the Mediterranean. So you have to be very careful in case you have the slightest intention to use religion as a tool.

In a high-level meeting recently in Bonn, a very high representative of US from the military forces told us that they are very much afraid of radical Islam. And he said, in the world, there are 1,3 billion Muslims. If one percent of this Muslims are radicals, then America has 13 million enemies. How to fight this 13 million people? He said; “our solution is that 13 million people should be controlled only true moderate Muslims.” So moderate Muslims are our friends so we have to use moderate Muslims as a tool against radical Muslims. We believe that this is the biggest mistake you can ever make. Why? Because you never know where moderate Islam ends and the radical Islam starts. Those radical Islamic countries, fundamental countries were a few decades ago, moderate countries. There was no fundamentalism in Iran, for instance. Therefore you should not be sure that you could contain moderate Muslims in a country and use them as a tool against radical Islam. Then what will be the solution? The solution of my party is precisely secularism. Because Turkey is the only country which can use secular democracy as a tool to export democracy to the entire region. This is an absolutely crucial issue. And when you first present your idea of enlarged Middle East programme, we welcomed it. And we said ‘well, probably it is good. Let’s see what is in it.’ But after studying your text we discovered that the most important point is missing in your programme. This is secularism. So you are planning to make the countries of the region democratic countries keeping their religious characteristics, which is incompatible. If you have a religious state, you don’t have gender equality. So if you don’t have gender equality, you are not a democracy. It is that simple. Therefore in case you want to make these countries democratic, it is not enough to name them democratic countries, you have to make them a real democracy. And for that matter, secularism is a must in case the majority of the population is Muslim. In Iraq, you have an advantage because there are millions of people in Iraq who cherish the concept of secularism. We are talking with Kurds in Iraq; they are sending us their political party representatives. We are talking with Sunnies and Shias and Turkomen, of course. And we noticed that there are several million people and their representatives of course, who cherish the secular democratic ideas. The Kurds, Turkomens are in favor of secularism and also lots of Christians agree too. Therefore we have to focus on this as a serious project. And in case Americans are interested, we can cooperate very closely with Americans on such a project. What will be the end product? The end product will be that, in case this region is democratized in the real sense, it will be an insurance policy for peace and stability. Don’t forget that so far in the world, there was no war, which took place among democratic countries. So the expression of democracy to the region will be extremely beneficial for you, for us and for the entire region. The democracy is the soft belly of your enemies in the area. Don’t forget that.

For that matter, we need to talk a little more to consult and I will explain you, for instance, what will be a concrete advantage for Turkey of the expansion of democracy. So you will be more relaxed. We will not be obliged to mobilize so many troops in the area in Turkey in general. And we will profit from the peace dividend that all NATO countries profited after the end of the Cold War with the exception of Turkey. So in case we spend the same proportion of our national income for defense as Germany, we would profit about 8 to 9 billion dollars a year to be spend for social project. It will be a tremendous success for Turkey. We cannot do it because we are the only NATO country who has non-democratic and some of them fundamentalist neighbors. Thanks to the presidency of Turkish army and peaceful policy that Atatürk started ‘peace at home, peace in the world’ policy, we are the only country who remained in peace in the last 83 years. No other country in the Middle East lived in the peace for so long and in Europe only three countries did it. So this is our big success. For all this matters, we need a good cooperation with our allies and we need to count on your solidarity.

I must confess you that we have serious problems at this moment concerning the solidarity in NATO. During the first Gulf operation, just in the beginning, I was ambassador to Bonn. And the top foreign policy advisor of the prime minister invited me. He told me, “in case you are attacked by the Iraqis, probably we are not going to defend you according to our NATO commitment.” “Why not?” “Because you allowed to use Americans Incirlik air base. Which means that you are in a sense provoked Iraqis. So in case they attack you because of that, you would be responsible of their attack and Germany will not feel obliged to help Turkey.” I said, “do you mean that to enjoy your support and solidarity and assistance, we had to deny to our major ally, the use of Incirlik air base? Is this your message?” He said “I don’t exactly but you will face problems.” So during the war, indeed, we ask precisely German, Italian, and Belgian air force to be in Turkey in case of an Iraqi attack and Germans were so unhappy. They place their aircrafts, Alfa jets about 4000 km from our Iraqi borders. And after the end of their operation, they made interviews with the Alfa jet pilots. He said, “overnight all my hair become white. I was so frightened.” But this time it was more serious. Because this time, before your intervention, on the first phases, we asked for NATO assistance. We asked them to send us Patriot missiles for protection in case of a missile attack from Iraq. Three countries reject it: Germany, France, Belgium. After long negotiations, we were able to persuade Belgians and Germans but no way with France. So as a result of that, we were unable to take a decision from NATO Council to send patriots to Turkey, but only from defense planning committee where France is not a member. So you are living in such a delicate area and you do not enjoy the support of your allies at a critical junction. This was a lesson that we have taken in your first operation.

My last point would be that at this moment, we have an even more serious problem. This relates to our relations with US. I was in NATO in the day the terrorist attack in USA. I am the person said that day ‘today we are all Americans’. And those who are sitting next to me told me that; you are the only country supported America today more strongly than any other allies. So we are committed to combat together with Americans and we strongly supported this article 5 decision and we told Americans that ‘we are ready to do whatever you want from us in combating terrorism.’ And they were very thankful. We were thankful to Americans because they were the first to list PKK in the list of terrorist organizations. It was fantastic. Americans helped us in catching terrorist leader Ocalan. So we had an excellent record of cooperation with US.

In Iraq, you have 3500 terrorists stationed that they are crossing the borders and they kill people, they attack economic targets. And nobody is in charge of stopping and checking them. So the Iraqi government is not in a position to do that, they don’t have enough force. So our borderline passes through 3000 meters high mountains, you cannot defend the border from the Turkish side. I visited the area recently, and I flew with a helicopter over this region. You cannot defend the Turkish border from the Turkish side only. Then you have to defend from Iraqi side. We have signed an agreement with Iraq and Britain in 1926 saying that within the range of 75 km both countries are in charge of protecting the border, preventing terrorists etc. Nothing happened. Iraq is not in a position to defend. Then Americans should do that. Since you have so many troops. Americans said; ‘unfortunately we have other priorities’. We said ‘we are sorry but in that case the only option is to do job by ourselves.’ Let us to do the job. They said; ‘no, please don’t do that.’ This is not understandable. In the last 40 years or so, I worked with American diplomats, congressman. We worked together in most difficult issues. Sometimes we have diverging points. But even if we were different things, opinions we were at least understanding each other. For the first time, we do not understand Americans. What could be the meaning of this? We cannot combat terrorist threatening your country, killing your people. But you should not defend yourselves; your borders against terrorists and you should not combat with them. Is it your message? If this is your message your message, why? Nobody can persuade us that Americans doing this deliberately just to punish Turkey, using terrorism. I will not. I will be the last person in Turkey to believe in that. The explanation that has been given to us in the State Department was that our main purpose is to preserve the stability in the Northern Iraq. We told them; “are you ready to sacrifice the stability of Turkey for the sake of stability in there? Is it what you mean?” They said they did not mean that. “Then what is your message? If there is no stability in Turkey, then you will be the loser as well, together with us. So you have to finish this terrorism problem for sure whatever the cost may be.” Everybody is forcing the government to take steps to finish this. And the Chief of Staff General Buyukanit had a press conference the other day. He said that; “as military force we believe that we have to operate, in northern Iraq. And we will be successful. But for that matter, we need the political decision of the Parliament. The government should propose it.

So when we will be in power, I hope at the end of this year, what shall we do? First, in Iraq and on the Middle East issues, we will have stronger, deeper consultation with Americans and with Europeans. We need each other and we have to exchange views and information and you should know exactly what we think. In the Middle East, we will refrain by all means to talk with terrorists. Turkey today acknowledges HAMAS as a terrorist organization and we believe that it was a mistake to invite HAMAS leaders to Turkey to have talks. Even the intentions of the government is divine, it was a mistake. Because we have a principal policy: not to talk with terrorist and the supporters of terrorists. As long as HAMAS uses jihad as a main tool in their programme, as long as they do not recognize Israel, their policy is to eradicate Israel, they cannot be our friends.
We followed this policy in the past when my party was in power as well with Syria. When they were refusing to send back Ocalan, we cut all our political ties and all political contacts. We told them that we could discuss with you only combating terrorism. Nothing else. They tried to visit Turkey, we refused; they tried to invite us, we refused. Then they finally understood that we were serious. Our commanders made a few statements at the border region. Then 2-3 days later, they sent Ocalan out of the country and they changed their policy dramatically. At that time, we urged Americans and Israelis: ‘please do the same and don’t talk with those who support terrorism.’ The American Secretary of State visited Turkey two times. Today our Chief or Staff stated very firmly that Barzani and Talabani are supporting PKK by arms. We have to rely on them. He possesses the most sensitive intelligence. He made this public. So you have to respect his words. We believe that you have to reconsider your cooperation with Barzani and Talabani because you cannot support or present yourself as a country having good friendship and dialogue with those who supported terrorism. Either you persuade them not to support terrorist or you reconsider your position. It is that simple. Imagine that in a democratic society you only have one army. You cannot have three armies. In Iraq, there are three armies: regular armies, Barzani’s armies, Talabani’s armies. It can’t work. Do you have a Bayernish army in Germany because they are federal state? Is there a Catalan army in Spain? But they have armies and thanks to their armies, they try to impose their political view. They threaten Turkey. They threaten everyone because they believe that they are powerful. They don’t know that they are facing the second strongest army of the NATO. We believe that in case we will be in power we will intensify our cooperation. We will definitely help you in getting of this messing Iraq. In the Middle East, we will do our best. In Iran, we will do our best because no NATO country at this moment is within the range of missiles in Iran. We are the only one. Iran as a nuclear power is the biggest nightmare for Turkey. We are more threatened than the US. Therefore you can’t have a better ally then Turkey in containing Iran and preventing her from developing the weapons. Provided that you are firm until the end in your policy because you were telling us to do everything possible to stop Pakistan and India to produce nuclear weapons and you were even putting pressure on Turkey not to export materials to those countries. But the moment they posses them, they tested their missiles, you changed your policy. Perhaps Iranians think that the day they posses nuclear weapons, they will change their policy as well. Then other countries may follow. So we have to be very firm on nuclear arms control and we will be very firm as far as my party concerned in this regard.

So the bottom line is that; we are your friends, my party is your friend, we will continue to be your friends. We are the most western-minded party in Turkey. We strongly support your values and we need more dialogue and consultation with you on so many issues including EU.

Question: ….

Öymen: We do not know yet if the assassination of Hrant Dink was an individual or an organized crime. But if you ask my personal feeling, I will tell you that it should be rather linked to entire secular movement. The killing of a priest in Trabzon, the attack of the Highest Court where an extreme anti-secular person killed a high judge and others because of a secular decision taken by the court, and the killing of Hrant Dink, Armenian journalist, and also we have a few other attacks and we believe that there is a growing feeling against secularism. But why? We have an interpretation, which might be different from the interpretation of the government because in the last few years there was too much talk of religion in Turkish political arena, which could be for good reasons or could be for wrong reasons. But whatever the reason may be, there was too much reference to religion. You may have very moderate feelings but other people who are inspired by you can go further down and can use wildness. Look what happened in Virginia attack. Actually it goes to a terrible situation. So what should we do in Turkey? We have to combat seriously with the entire secular movements and the politicians in respect of their parties. By no means religion should be used as a tool in politics in Turkey. It has nothing to do with nationalism. Nationalism is something totally different. Nationalist people in Turkey are not against other religions. They do not have a tradition of attacking religion of other parties. We are a nationalist party but we have never recorded one single position statement against any religion. On the contrary, my party preaches friendship and harmony and solidarity amongst people of all religions. Therefore nationalism is one thing, anti-secular activities is another thing.  Please do not try in Turkey to give credit to any religious political action, which might lead to a very very unexpected situation.

Question: …

Öymen: Well, it is quite amazing that we used the same language. In Turkey while talking in the Parliament, we do not have a double language. We told the public exactly what we are telling you today. But you cannot bring this in Turkish press. That is the problem. We have a very very serious problem in Turkey because unfortunately the press is; I apologize from Mr. Yakış, the very great part of the Turkish press is owned by big business men and these big business men are very vulnerable to the government. So they are very much afraid of the pressure of the government even if the government does not have such an intention; at least there is a fear of the government. That is why, they never print what we say, or if they print most of the time they change our words as if we said something different.

When we talk about the EU, we say that we support the EU. We published a book containing all our statements. When you read the Turkish press, you see that CHP is against the EU. It is unbelievable. Many writers, columnists, TV programmers have lost their job because they were critical of the government. For that matter, whatever you read in the Turkish press about our party is wrong and does not reflect our policies. What you can do is to enter our website and read what we have said. We are so surprised to read what they attribute to us. This is the situation in Turkey, for the first time in multi-party period of our democracy, there is an open censorship against the opposition. Last Saturday, there was the biggest demonstration in Ankara on 14th April. There were hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating. At that time, one big news channel was broadcasting a programme about the life of Castro and the other one, a motor race. Finally they apologized. Why they did so? Because these people were protesting against the government of the presidency of Mr. Erdogan. They wanted to hide this from the public opinion.

Question: …
Öymen: We spread all of our statements from the party channel to the entire population. The good thing is that we have a national channel broadcasting the statements in the Parliament, although there was a few times an electricity shortcut when I was criticizing the government. We are using all sorts of electronic means, and also the government party does the same. They are slightly better than us; they have more money. But we are using internet to spread this information to youngsters and all the population, because the press is a disaster at this moment.

Question: …
Öymen: You were so successful, and we supported you, in your efforts to export a real democracy to Eastern Europe. You did the same elsewhere in the world. There is a research published in an American book that I read recently, democracy has spread everywhere in the world with the exception of the Middle East. Do you believe that people in the Middle East do not deserve to live in a democratic society? Some scholars claim that Muslims cannot live in a democratic society because, with a few exceptions, democracy is for grant for Christian societies, which is not true.  In that sense, Turkey should serve as a model for Middle Eastern countries. What we are reacting is the attribution of the title “moderate Islam” to Turkey. We are not a moderate Muslim country; we are not a Muslim country at all. We are a country with Muslim population, but we are a secular country. The moment the Americans or others qualify us as a Muslim country, of course we are reacting.

The understanding in Turkey is that you want to change our basic structure because you believe that if we become a moderate Muslim country, we can serve as a good model for the region. It is completely wrong because what the region needs is not a moderate Muslim government, they need a real democracy. A moderate Muslim country cannot be a real democracy. There is no example in the world. A Muslim democracy does not exist in the world.

Maybe a Catholic country can say in their Constitution that they are a religious country. The queen of England is the chairperson of the church, for instance. Those are historical memories, but nobody can say that religion governs the British government’s policy. We believe that this is the critical point. Please do not think for a moment that by using religion as a tool, you will reach your tool in the Middle East or elsewhere. We have such bitter experiences in this regard that we have eradicated this concept from our life, from our Constitution, from our laws.

Question: …
Öymen: About the situation in Iraq, we understand that the majority of the American public, and now the majority of the Congress are in favor of the withdrawal of the American troops although some continues to believe that they should try again the actual policy for a few months more. But probably at the end you will try to take back your troops, at least the majority of your troops. So should you leave a vacuum while leaving Iraq? We believe that you should not. For that matter, my party proposed that there should be a UN peacekeeping force composed of countries having no direct interest in Iraq and not neighboring Iraq. For instance, countries like India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Canada, Finland, and Ireland. We believe that we should establish such a group.
Second, what is happening in Kirkuk is really terrible because obviously, the purpose of Barzani is to take Kirkuk in the Kurdish region. Their ultimate aim is to establish an independent country in Northern Iraq and Kirkuk will be their economic center because in Kirkuk they produce 40 % of the Iraki oil. So while talking about Kirkuk, you are talking about oil. We believe that the oil of Kirkuk should be allowed to the entire population of Iraq. Nobody should monopolize this oil. Unfortunately, they added an article 140 to the Constitution of Iraq, which was not in the previous draft, saying that there will a three-phase plan for Kirkuk: first phase: normalization of the situation, second phase: consensus and third: referendum. All of them should take place this year. Baker-Hamilton plan says very rightfully that this referendum should be postponed ever. Senator John McCain said the same. We are telling the same. But Barzani is furious. I talked to Richard Holbrooke, he said me that after talking with Barzani and his son for five hours, there is no way. They are not going to yield. They see themselves so powerful and they are getting enough money from several resources. They may turn into sort of Taiwan, sort of state without having the title of a state. So I said it will an extremely dangerous situation. So our suggestion to our American friends is to stop the referendum in Kirkuk. Even more important, do not trust too much to the information that there is disagreement between the Shias in Iraq and the Iranian government. The division of Iraq into three parts will further help the Iranians to play this game. Therefore, the policy to stop Iranian influence should be the policy of nation state in Iraq and secular democracy.
The Iraqi Kurds are so often changing their alliances that you cannot predict what they will do tomorrow. Only a few years ago, in mid-1990s, Barzani and Talabani forces were fighting with each other. Barzani went to Baghdad with the assistance of Saddam against Talabani. Saddam sent troops to the north; it was an extremely difficult and delicate situation. At the same time, Ankara process started. We brought together Barzani, Talabani and Turkomans. We helped to stop the war among themselves and we asked Turkomans to keep the border between Barzani and Talabani secure. And it was a fantastic period. Barzani and Talabani condemmed and fought with PKK. Barzani has lost 3000 peshmergas  in this fight against PKK. Today they are supporting PKK against Turkey. Could you imagine that? From which power they got the impression and the support? I met one of these Kurdish leaders in Socialist International meeting recently, Bahram Salih. He told that, “we are aware that Americans will leave us. We look around us and we realize that the only country that we can rely is Turkey. So be sure that we will not do anything against the interest of Turkey.”
To what extent you can rely on such words, I do not know. But there are Kurds who believe that their best allies are Turks, because the Kurds are the relatives of our citizens who live in South Anatolia. So we have no reason to attack Kurdish interest. We have all the reasons to cooperate with Kurds. But in case they support terrorism, of course we cannot tolerate. You will not cooperate anyone who supports Al-Kaida.

Question: …
Öymen: We learn secularism from Thomas Jefferson. He says that while preparing the American Constitution, they erected a wall between the state and the religion. This is the meaning of secularism. Otherwise, as politicians, you can be deeply religious. The US is number five in the world as regards to religious ideals and beliefs. Number four is Turkey. So we are not that different in being religious. But we have been very keen in separating religion from state. If someone tells you in the US that you should not apply that law, but that chapter of the Bible, what would be your reaction? This is our understanding of secularism. Otherwise, we are not against religion at all.

Question: …
Öymen: The interventions of the Turkish army in the past were extremely successful so much so that they destroyed all PKK headquarters. At that time, I was undersecretary in the Foreign Ministry and I opened a foreign office in Diyarbakır. Each time, after the operations, we were sending our diplomats to Northern Iraq to watch the situation. They were on-the-spot, they were in contact with Barzani and Talabani. According to our experience, the reason of the minimization of terrorist activities in Turkey was our experience in Northern Iraq, including our air operations. Our air pilots are extremely able in attacking precise targets. We were very satisfied anyway.

I give you an example. The terrorists kidnapped about 10,000 people from Turkey and brought them to a camp called Atruş. Then they asked assistance from UN. All of a sudden, this camp became a PKK camp. They were attacking the youngsters from the camp and using them as terrorists. We called the UN to close the camp. They were reluctant. One day, we started a few low-attitude flights on the camp. In one week, 3,000 people came to Turkey. So when you show your determination and ability to use force, if necessary, it has an impact on the terrorists. Do not underestimate to control the situation in case we operate.